Robert W. Service
Missis Moriarty called last week, and says she to me, says she:
“Sure the heart of me’s broken entirely now—
it’s the fortunate woman you are;
You’ve still got your Dinnis to cheer up your home,
but me Patsy boy where is he?
Lyin’ alone, cold as a stone, kilt in the weariful wahr.
Oh, I’m seein’ him now as I looked on him last,
wid his hair all curly and bright,
And the wonderful, tenderful heart he had, and his eyes as he wint away,
Shinin’ and lookin’ down on me from the pride of his proper height:
Sure I’ll remember me boy like that if I live to me dyin’ day.”
And just as she spoke them very same words me Dinnis came in at the door,
Came in from McGonigle’s ould shebeen, came in from drinkin’ his pay;
And Missis Moriarty looked at him, and she didn’t say anny more,
But she wrapped her head in her ould black shawl, and she quietly wint away.
And what was I thinkin’, I ask ye now, as I put me Dinnis to bed,
Wid him ravin’ and cursin’ one half of the night, as cold by his side I sat;
Was I thinkin’ the poor ould woman she was
wid her Patsy slaughtered and dead?
Was I weepin’ for Missis Moriarty? I’m not so sure about that.
Missis Moriarty goes about wid a shinin’ look on her face;
Wid her grey hair under her ould black shawl,
and the eyes of her mother-mild;
Some say she’s a little bit off her head; but annyway it’s the case,
Her timper’s so swate that you nivver would tell
she’d be losin’ her only child.
And I think, as I wait up ivery night for me Dinnis to come home blind,
And I’m hearin’ his stumblin’ foot on the stair along about half-past three:
Sure there’s many a way of breakin’ a heart, and I haven’t made up me mind—
Would I be Missis Moriarty, or Missis Moriarty me?
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem is a quiet, poignant exploration of grief and resilience, wrapped in the unassuming voice of an ordinary Irish woman. It’s not loud about its sadness, but it hits you hard because of how close to home it feels, like listening to someone tell you their story over a cup of tea, their words steeped in bitterness and love.
Missis Moriarty and the narrator seem to represent two sides of the same coin, both mothers coping with loss. Missis Moriarty’s loss is clear and absolute—her Patsy, “kilt in the weariful wahr,” is gone, and she carries the weight of that with a strange kind of grace. She doesn’t wallow; instead, she moves through her grief with a “shinin’ look” and “swate timper,” almost otherworldly in her acceptance. There’s something both admirable and unsettling about her demeanor. She’s either found peace or slipped into a kind of quiet madness, and the poem leaves you wondering which.
Then there’s the narrator, still tethered to her Dinnis, who’s alive but far from the man she must have once hoped he’d be. Her grief isn’t the kind you can easily name; it’s not the clean, sharp pain of death but the dull, grinding ache of watching someone waste away. Dinnis stumbles home drunk, “ravin’ and cursin’,” a shadow of whatever potential he once had, and the narrator’s heart breaks differently every night. The poem draws this contrast so vividly: Missis Moriarty has her memories of Patsy at his best, but the narrator has the cold reality of Dinnis in her bed, a reminder of everything he’s not.
What makes this poem so moving is the quiet way it examines the idea of heartbreak. Missis Moriarty’s grief seems more bearable because it has a kind of finality to it—Patsy is gone, but she can remember him as he was, “wid his hair all curly and bright.” The narrator’s pain, on the other hand, is open-ended and suffocating. She doesn’t know whether to envy Missis Moriarty’s loss or cling to her own version of love, no matter how broken it is. The final question she poses—”Would I be Missis Moriarty, or Missis Moriarty me?”—isn’t one she can answer, and it leaves the reader just as conflicted.
The language is simple, even conversational, but it carries so much weight. The Irish dialect brings the characters to life and makes their struggles feel all the more real. There’s no pretense here, no flowery descriptions or grand declarations—just two women dealing with the cards life has dealt them, each in her own way. The poem doesn’t tell you which way is better, or if either of them is better at all. It just lays their lives out side by side, and you’re left to sit with that ache, wondering what you’d do in their shoes.